Pacelli Leads Villa Park to an Unlikely Season of Success

The Villa Park water polo team reached the second round of the Southern Section Division I playoffs, but its most important game didn’t come in the postseason.

The one the Spartans will remember was their regular-season-ending 10-9 overtime victory over six-time defending Century League-champion Foothill.

“It was the most incredible feeling,” senior captain Nick Pacelli said. “It probably felt as good for us as it did for Long Beach Wilson to win CIF. That’s how big of a thing it was for us. It was everything. That was our season--that one game.”

Victory in that game--and the league title that came with it--eased years of Spartan frustration. Pacelli, a four-year starter, had never beaten Foothill. His older brother Joey, another Spartan standout now in his second year at UC Santa Barbara, never did.

In some ways it was an unlikely year for it to happen. Foothill appeared to have the depth and talent to make it seven in a row, and Villa Park had one of its most inexperienced teams of the decade, with a freshman, three sophomores and a junior playing his first season of water polo getting plenty of playing time.

But any team that includes Pacelli is dangerous, as every team that played Villa Park this season discovered.

Pacelli, The Times Orange County player of the year, was double- and triple-teamed and still found ways to put the ball in the goal. He scored a school-record 129 goals, had 68 assists and drew 62 ejections.

“He’d wiggle free and go up higher than our guys,” El Toro Coach Don Stoll said. “He’s got a lot of tenacity and he’s tough. He doesn’t give up.”

And Pacelli was playing out of position at two meters. At 5 feet 11 and 167 pounds, Pacelli will play driver in college, but Villa Park needed him in the hole almost every time down the pool.

So Pacelli got plenty of attention from opposing defenses. In retrospect, he said, it helped his game.

“It was an honor actually,” Pacelli said. “Going into games off the sprint you hear the coach yelling, ‘Pick him up’ and three guys go to you. It gets frustrating but when you think about it is really an honor because not many players can really say that happens to them.

“It’s made me work that much harder. It bettered me a lot as a player and it helped me work on keeping my temper because I got so frustrated with all those guys on me.”

In the past that frustration often got the best of Pacelli, but Villa Park Coach Jeff Ehrlich said he matured this season. “In the Foothill game he really kept his composure. They were just swarming him,” Ehrlich said.

Pacelli scored only two goals, but his teammates made up for it. “I was nervous,” Pacelli said, “I was thinking, ‘Come on guys, you can do it, please.’ When they did it, I was proud of them. I was real happy.”